Designing an ESP reading skills course

Transcription

1 Designing an ESP reading skills course Gro Frydenberg This article delineates a step-by-step procedure for designing an English for Specific Purposes (ESP) reading skills course for a group of students whose interests and academic pursuits are similar. Throughout the article the example of the author s ESP course for students in the soft-science field of education is used to illustrate the process. It is contended that the main differences between a regular ESL reading skills course and this type of ESP course are: (1) the use of authentic, non-simplified, directly relevant texts in their field of specialization, and (2) a focusing on the students immediate reading needs. A significant problem in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) instruction has been that the purposes have not been sufficiently specific. Students taking ESP courses generally do not constitute a homogeneous group in terms of background, needs, interests, or proficiency in English. There are no (and cannot be any) ready-made materials that will suit every student. In addition, exactly what distinguishes ESP programs from regular ESL courses is a matter of controversy. Many important research advances have been made in the analysis of technical texts, for example, but the direct application of these studies to instruction is not obvious. In this article I would like to present and describe a set of possible components of an ESP reading skills course, and discuss some aspects of design, instruction, and evaluation which I have found useful in such a course. 1 Background In the summer of 1980 through the Office of International Projects at Eastern Michigan University, the Department of Foreign Languages admitted 35 students from the Yemen Arab Republic. These students make up the first group of a five-year program supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development. The aim of the program is to improve elementary school education in Yemen by providing graduate level instruction in the Department of Education for five consecutive groups of Yemeni teachers and administrators. In the winter semester of 1981, I was asked to develop and teach an ESP reading skills course for the students with the highest level of ESL proficiency. We decided that a course using one of their Education textbooks would be appropriate in this situation. The instructor of their Educational Measurement course contacted the Foreign Languages Department before the start of the semester suggesting a cooperative effort. Since, in addition, his course was thought to be the most challenging of the students three Education courses, the text that he was using was chosen as a basis for the ESP course. 2 Steps in planning Rather than relate point-by-point how I planned and taught this parthe course ticular course, I would like to present the essential factors that I extracted 156 ELT Joumal Volume 36/3 April 1982

2 for use on future courses. I believe it would be useful to consider these factors in designing an ESP course for any group of learners. 2.1 Draw up a list It was not self-evident to me what kinds of skills to include in a course of of skills for the course this kind. The main problem centred around the question of what (if any) the differences should be between a regular English as a Second Language (ESL) reading course and reading for specific purposes. I believe that the differences lie more in the emphasis of particular parts of the course rather than in skills. In a more hard science -based course, more weight would be placed on interpreting figures and diagrams, translating from symbols to language (and vice versa), analysing rhetorical paragraph structure, etc., because in scientific/technological expository writing these aspects are more stringently defined and easier to isolate. In soft-science fields such as history, geography, psychology, education, etc., however, the textbooks do not so much claim to describe and classify what is, but are more concerned with supporting and defending how the stands taken were arrived at, and what axioms and beliefs about human nature form the basis of the arguments. The texts are often prescriptive as well as descriptive. In the case of this particular ESP course for Education students, I decided that study skills were a necessary component as well as direct reading skills. The list of skills which I drew up for that course is given under point Find relevant texts The choice of text(s) depends very much on each group s situation. If the students are taking other courses at the same time as the ESP course, the most obvious choice is one of their other course books. It must be made clear to the students from the beginning that, despite the use of a regular course book, the aim of the ESP course is not to teach the content of the book or of that course, but to teach high-transfer skills that are only incidentally being developed through texts that are the same as or similar to those used on their content courses. The ESL instructor is not obligated to cover any particular areas or chapters at the same speed or depth as the content course. The advantages of using text(s) from their content course(s) are, in particular, that a professor teaching the content course may be available and willing to help the ESL instructor in understanding the material, and that it motivates the students by having immediate positive effects on their work in the content course. If the students are not taking concurrent courses whose textbooks are useful for an ESP reading course, many other kinds of texts may be chosen: depending on the students level of proficiency in English, a textbook aimed at a junior college or even a high school audience may be useful. Professional journals, and perhaps even popular journals may also provide good language teaching materials. One could, for example, study how a similar subject was presented to different audiences in a magazine like Psychology Today on the one hand, and a specialist journal on the other. Questions of register, rhetorical structure, ambiguity and the validity of conclusions seem likely points of departure. 2.3 Decide on the For this step it is useful to draw up a table of specifications. In this table relative importance one can range the sections of the course or a list of skills down the left-hand of skills side, and the levels of comprehension or performance objectives along the top of the table. Then one can weight each component of the course or unit to establish its relative importance to us. In a language course of the kind I am referring to, we are basically con- Designing an ESP reading skills course 157

3 cerned with the application of skills, i.e. with getting students to show mastery of a skill by applying it to new and unknown material. For example, to test whether a student knows the meaning of the Greek and Latin number prefixes, we don t ask him to select a meaning for the word monolingual which we studied in class, but instead we may test it with monologue, which we did not teach. Similarly, there is no purpose in asking the student to find the main idea of a paragraph which we have studied before; that would merely show that the student remembered correctly from one day to the next. We will give her/him a paragraph of similar structure, with a similar vocabulary level and similar content, and then ask the familiar question. A table of specifications for an ESP course such as the one I taught is illustrated under point Make a list of The list of skills to be developed is the basis for this list of course objectives. general objectives To start with, this can be a general list of what we expect the students to be able to do at the end of the course; the detailed specific objectives can come later. If the instructor has never taught such a course before, s/he will probably find it hard (as I did) to plan in detail what the relevant specific objectives should be. Much will depend on the first meeting with the students (or on a diagnostic test, if we decide to give one), when we can discover more about the students strong and weak points. Some suggestions of general instructional objectives are given under point Match objectives Generally, the first two things new students ask are: How are you going to to types of tests grade us? and When is the first vacation? Concerning the former, it is well known that the types of tests given influence a student s learning during a course. No matter how much a teacher says s/he values creativity, if s/he primarily tests recall of facts, then that is what the students will learn to do. Depending on the instructor s objectives, the students may be asked to make inferences from a paragraph, compare two passages, outline a chapter, select the best explanation of a word from the context, etc. Examples of this kind of matching are given in point Weighting of The skills list I drew up for the ESP course based on Education texts does course components not deviate much from more traditional reading skills courses. The main 3.1 A list of reading difference is one of emphasis. For instance, in many content areas, the use and study skills and interpretation of tables is of major importance. In this particular course, the book contained primarily line and bar graphs and tables, which the students had little trouble interpreting. For another group, this component might have been more prominent. Here is the list as it was before the course started : SKILLS LIST: ESP 211, Winter 1981 A. Study skills 1 Utilizing a dictionary: a. alphabeticized system b. pronunciation key c. homographs/homophones d. parts of speech markers e. cross-reference f. syllabification 3 Utilizing the textbook: a. indices b. appendices c. footnotes d. bibliography e. tables and diagrams 2 Utilizing the library: a. card catalog 158 Gro Frydenberg

4 b. call numbers c. subject and author listings d. periodicals file e. microfilm reader B. Reading skills: textbook and professional Journals 1 Skimming a chapter for main points 2 Scanning a text for special references S Close reading. Critical understanding of a. complex sentences and sentences connections b. paragraphs (topic sentence, main idea, etc.) c. passages (drawing conclusions, making inferences, facts vs. opinions, predicting outcomes, etc.) 4 Vocabulary comprehension from : a. word structure (root and affix) b. context (restatement, explanation, example, definition, inference, situation, grammar, punctuation, etc.) 3.2 A table of For a course where there is no textbook available (or there cannot be any, specifications since the content area book(s) may vary from one year to the next), the instructor must necessarily produce all the exercises. Because of time pressure, it is easy to fall into the trap of writing mainly sentence-level practice material. In order continually to remind myself of what the main focus of the course should be and how much time should be devoted to the different areas, I find it useful to write a tentative table of specifications early in the semester. In my course we concentrated on textbook use, library use, and the PQ4R system of approaching a text during the first four weeks. PQ4R simply stands for Preview, Question, Read, Recite, Recall and Review. We emphasize that a text is not read by having been read once. After those four weeks, I drew up a more explicit table of specifications (which also added up to loo%), based on textbook use, library use, and the PQ4R system. I then made test items according to the amount of time spent on the three areas of study skills. The table for the whole course was arrived at by listing Course content Knowledge Comprehension Application Sum STUDY SKILLS Dictionary use Library use Textbook use READING SKILLS Skimming Scanning Comprehension of: Complex sentences Paragraphs Passages Comprehension of vocabulary from: Word structure Context 3% 3% 3% 7% 10% 7% 10% 7% 10% 5% 5% 5% 5% 10% 15% 40% 15% 5% 20% 15% TOTAL : 100% Table 1 Designing an ESP reading skills course 159

5 the content areas to be covered down the left side of the table, and the levels of learning across the top. In a skills course such as this, practically all that we are interested in is at the application level; i.e., we want the students to acquire a skill to be applied to new and previously unknown material. Only when practising study skills did I find some use for the knowledge level of learning (knowledge of facts, definitions, etc.). The levels of learning are based on Bloom s taxonomy of educational objectives in the cognitive domain (Bloom et al. 1956). On the advice of the students Education professor, I consolidated all four of Bloom s higherlevel objectives into the application category. The table as it was at the beginning of the semester is given as Table I. 4 Objectives, An instructional objective is a statement in behavioral terms of the methodology and expected changes in the student s behavior as a direct or indirect result of evaluation instruction. Properly stated, objectives can serve as guides for both teaching and evaluation. My purpose in this forum is merely to use as examples some objectives I have found useful, not to present a complete list. 4.1 General Behavioral objectives can be an aid in instruction, since the description instructional objectives of the behavior we expect from the student may suggest teaching methods and specific learning that aim at developing that particular behavior. The objectives can be an outcomes aid in evaluation because they may suggest evaluation techniques appropriate to the different kinds of skills we emphasize. In this section I would like to consider the skills list from section 3.1 and propose some types of instructional objectives relevant to the different areas of the list. In section 4.2 I will give examples of what I have found to be useful teaching methods based on the objectives, and in 4.3 I will suggest some appropriate evaluation methods. In the study skills area, we are interested in two kinds of learning: simple knowledge and the application of that knowledge. Naturally, application has been given more importance than knowledge, which can be memorized and reiterated at test time. Let us look at utilizing the textbook as an example. At the knowledge level we may have general objectives such as: 1a The student should know the kind of information contained in an index, an appendix, a table of contents, a footnote, a bibliography, etc. 1b The student should know the difference between a subject index and an author index. 1c The student know the organization of footnotes referring to books and articles. To be able to determine whether or not the student has achieved the objectives, we must specify the exact behavior which we will accept as evidence that s/he has done so. For objective 1a, we could demand that: 1a(i) The student should be able to match the correct description of the above terms with the terms themselves. or 1a(ii) The student should be able to write a description of the above terms including all the relevant information discussed in class. One could easily get higher degrees of exactness by including the conditions under which s/he must show her/his knowledge, and (if relevant) the criterion for passing. If we can do this, all the better. In the process of refining the course objectives, the instructor gains insight into her/his underlying assumptions of what knowing the kind of information some- 160 Gro Frydenberg

6 thing contains means, and can focus instruction accordingly. For a fledgeling course such as the one I undertook, however, I found it both impossible and counter-productive to try to design a specific list of behavioral objectives before the course got under way. I prize flexibility, and was acutely aware that I did not know exactly what kinds of skills were essential to my students and how they should show me that they had acquired them. In addition, in an ESP course the students may be aware of study problems inherent in their field that at first I do not perceive as especially difficult (e.g. special interpretation of graphs, culture-biased examples and metaphors, and assumptions about human nature), and I believe strongly in a dialog between instructor and students on these points. The time when specific objectives become crucial is when it comes to testing the students, and I will have more to say about that under section 4.3. Let us consider possible reading skills objectives. In the area of close reading of sentences, paragraphs, and longer passages, skills such as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation of the material are central. As general objectives, consider the following: IIa The student should be able to analyse complex sentences with respect to anaphoric and cataphoric references. IIb The student should be able to apply knowledge of relationships between sentences such as cause-effect, contrast, example, addition, emphasis, etc., to new situations and texts. IIc The student should be able to locate the topic sentence in any position in a paragraph. IId The student should be able to distinguish between facts and opinions in a text. In order to make these objectives testable, we would have to restate them in behavioral terms, such as, for example: IIa(i) The student should be able to mark a text by circling pronouns and articles, and drawing lines to and underlining what they refer to. IIa(ii) The student should be able to select answers to questions concerning the anaphoric referents of pronouns and articles. IId(i) The student should be able to underline facts and opinions in a text in different colors. The student should not miss more than one of each type of statement, and must identify the two types correctly 90% of the time. The step from writing this kind of behavioral objective to testing whether the students have achieved the objective seems a rather simple one. In my opinion, it is essential to develop objectives from the point of view of what the instructor considers valuable and important, and not even steal a glance at what is easily testable. It is defeating the purpose of instructional objectives to focus too much attention on the technical details of perfect, unambiguous objectives in the early stages of developing a course. They are aids in instruction and testing, and nothing more. 4.2 Teaching methods Except for a minor part of the study skills area at the knowledge level (see table of specifications, section 3.2), most of our instruction in a reading skills course is aimed at the application level of learning. Application means learning to master skills in order to handle new material and situations: the instructor is not teaching the students to analyse one particular paragraph and get the most out of it, but how to approach any paragraph of this kind and get as much out of it as possible. In the study skills area I believe strongly in hands on experience. In Despmg an ESP reading skills course 161

7 the section on using a dictionary, for example, the instructor could round up as many different dictionaries as possible, borrowing from friends, colleagues, and the library. One could even haul in the Oxford English Dictionary, or better still, show the students where it is located in the library. It is particularly important that they become intimate with their own dictionary and really use it. In using the library, a general tour is not sufficient. The students must be sent there repeatedly on different errands requiring the use of the card catalog, periodicals file, and various equipment. Similarly, being able to use a textbook does not mean just the one they are using right now. Maybe the library has a stack of used books they would be willing to lend out for a few days, or perhaps a nearby school might have a set of old books one could use for testing purposes. Again, repeated practice with new materials is essential to develop application-level skills. It appears to me that an ESP course will typically be a skills-based course which lends itself readily to an individualized approach. I personally have not been able to instigate such a criterion-referenced2 program this semester, since it demands special materials, exercises, and a predesigned progression key, none of which an instructor is likely to be able to develop the first time around. I do believe, though, that we are not basically interested in exposing all the students to the same instruction and then testing them in a way that will spread out their scores as much as possible in this type of course. That would be a norm-referenced3 approach. An underlying assumption for a mastery-based course is that all students are able to master the material, at varying speeds and with varying amounts of instruction. 4.3 Evaluation A reading course is primarily concerned with interpretation of already existing text. In judging whether or not the students have reached the objectives we set, we want to try to avoid testing their writing ability along with their reading skills. It is up to the instructor to write a good multiplechoice, true-false, completion, or short-answer items in a test. In testing library and dictionary skills, I have found group or individual projects to provide the most learning as well as testing for the students, and in the area of using a textbook, short-answer questions requiring the correct use of the table of contents, indices, appendices, etc., have been useful. True-false statements are useful as a test-type, particularly when testing the ability to separate facts from opinions; and to test the ability to find the topic sentences, I ask the students to underline them. We also have the back-up of the instructional objectives: if the action verb in the objective says select, we should ask the students to select an answer; if it says draw own conclusions in writing, then that is what they should do. Of course, in a norm-referenced program, evaluation and grades will be assigned according to the group norm. In a criterion-referenced program, the situation is somewhat different. The objective still points to the test method, but, in addition, within each objective we will have stated the criterion for passing that objective: criterion-referenced tests are only pass-fail. A criterion could be, for example, The student must be able to identify the roots of any ten words in the word list for this level with 80% correctness three times in a row to pass. 5 Summary The aim of this article has been to suggest a logical series of steps to follow when confronted with the task of designing the first ESP Reading course at 162 Gro Frydenberg

8 an institution. The course that has been used as an example throughout the article was one based on the soft-science field of Education, where one of the students coursebooks from a current Education course was used as the ESP reading text. The general goal of the ESP course was to develop hightransfer reading skills applied to actual, non-simplified texts from this particular academic field. Minor goals concerned the development of relevant study skills (also always based on Education textbooks and journals), and the expansion of the students general, specific, and technical vocabulary. I have suggested that the process of designing and implementing such a course consists of six main steps : 1 define broad goals based on (perceived or diagnosed) student needs; 2 list the necessary language skills to meet these goals; 3 find relevant texts; 4 decide on the relative importance of the skills necessary for the course goals (i.e. weight the components); 5 list general course objectives in terms of student performances; 6 match the objectives to relevant test types and content. It has been emphasized that the ranked importance of a skill (and not the ease with which it is taught or tested) should be the guide when allotting class time and devising test items. The course objectives form a natural basis for decisions on instructional methods as well as test types and passfail criteria. Illustrations of ways of matching teaching and testing methods to some of the skills have been drawn from the author s own ESP reading course. Two things set a course such as this apart from general ESL reading courses: (1) the use of real-life, authentic texts from a real course currently being taught, and (2) the focus on the students immediate academic reading needs. An ESP course is invariably a course conceived and carried out as a means to an end. In the Eastern Michigan situation there was no comparable control group available, so no meaningful conclusions can be drawn about the immediate effect of the ESP course. However, student feedback shows it to have been very well received, primarily because the course was so directly applicable to the students other Education courses. And, as we know, motivation can move mountains of assignments and work wonders on comprehension and achievement. Received June 1981 Notes 1 The text was Gronlund: Measurement and Evaluation in Teaching, Macmillan Publishing Co. Inc. (New York), Criterion-referenced evaluation: this involves evaluating each student s performance according to a pre-determined criterion for a specific skill. The evaluation is normally pass-fail. 3 Norm-referenced evaluation: here a student s performance is evaluated according to a group norm. The norm may be the performance of a small group (such as a class), or a larger one, such as, for example, all the students in a country taking a standardized test. This evaluation is normally on a sliding scale of better than and worse than, not pass-fail. Reference Bloom B. S. (ed) A Taxonomy of Educational Objectives Vol. I: Cognitive Domain. New York: David McKay Co. The author Gro Frydenberg received her advanced degree in English Language (Candidata Philologiae) from the University of Oslo in She taught Norwegian at the University of Michigan from 1979 to 1980, and received a Master s degree in Linguistics from that university in the spring of Since that time, she has been teaching ESL/ESP at Eastern Michigan University in the United States. She has published in Scandinavian Studies and Spruk og Sprakundervisning (Norway). Designing an ESP reading skills course 163